Our first photo report in a few weeks brings us back to the Magic Kingdom to see all that’s new and exciting around the park…
Welcome to the Magic Kingdom
Black Out
Thanks to the Disney Parks Play app, the original queue games at Space Mountain that were installed during the 2009 overhaul have been turned off. Instead, they want guests to turn on their bright phones in the dark queue and play a game aided by these Atlantean-looking codes hidden throughout the queue.
A slow-moving star field now inhabits all of the queue screens.
Hastily placed decals can be found mostly near the load area, too bad there’s a ton of them on what is typically the FastPass side. If you’re creating an app to help entertain guests while they wait, maybe do some minor queue research?
Over at Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin, they have given up on the illuminated button panel in the queue. Looks like it will just be this plain, blue board now.
I did alright.
A Bridge Too Far
Coinciding with the ongoing work on Club 33, the Adventureland Bridge is getting fixed up. Guests are walking over a temporary metal bridge while the wood bridge underneath is repaired. The flat bridge was built in the last ten years, so it wasn’t terribly old.
The ads in the Liberty Square Ticket Office were altered to feature Toy Story Land.
Cast members outside of Village Haus were playing a game with guests where you throw “Cleo’s” into a bowl. The prize is a Jiminy Cricket sticker.
Shopping Spree
A plethora of new merchandise has arrived at the park as of late. First up, a shirt with incorrect attraction opening dates on it. The Tree of Life says it opened on April 2nd, 1998, but it was April 22nd. A fun shirt nonetheless.
I’ll Do It Tomorrowland, $34.99
Magic Kingdom tee, $24.99
Even though the Autopia is at Disneyland, this shirt is at the Magic Kingdom for $34.99. At least it has a Tomorrowland Speedway car on it.
The 2019 Walt Disney World calendar is now available.
A new Splash Mountain design is available for D-Tech on Demand phone cases. Be sure to take a look at the entire new Splash Mountain merchandise line available at the attraction’s exit.
A new Disney Gift Card features Madame Leota from the Haunted Mansion. It is lenticular and Madame Leota blinks just like on her tombstone outside of the attraction.
The logo on the Disney Tails merchandise was updated for some reason.
You can see the new and old logos side by side on product here.
The Christopher Robin movie plush have proven quite popular. Only Eeyore and and Kanga & Roo were avialble when we took this pic. Now it’s just Kanga and Roo.
This small plate is among the items in the MASSIVE new merchandise for The Haunted Mansion, be sure to check out all of them.
A new Magic Kingdom ladies tank top, $29.99
A fantastic new phone case was released featuring a 3-D effect. It has pictures inside of the 1971 which is over the original E-Ticket for the Magic Kingdom. Some of the photos are from opening day, while the Walt pictures are from when The Florida Project film was made years prior.
A Kingdom of New Eats
There has been a ton of menu changes at the Magic Kingdom over the last few weeks, so let’s take some time to recap them. Golden Oak Outpost has two new milkshakes, which you can read about here.
Cosmic Ray’s has a secret menu Pork Belly Burger which you can read about here.
This is the Brownie Temptation from the Main Street Bakery, read about it here.
Be Our Guest Restaurant started their new prix fixe dinner offerings, you can read out exhaustive review with every dish here.
Friar’s Nook now has Pub Tots, as well as vegan and meat brats. Read all about them here.
V.I.Passholder Nights
The first V.I.Passholder Night happened at the Magic Kingdom earlier this month. Basically it was Extra Magic Hours for preregistered annual passholders with nothing special offered. Lines weren’t much shorter than usual for many headlining attractions, so I’m not sure what the actual benefit was.
Passholders were given wristbands, even though they weren’t actually checked and plenty of normal day guests just stayed and rode attractions.
We ended up enjoying some attractions that aren’t very hard to see normally, like the Country Bear Jamboree. It was neat to see these attractions with others who knew them well. Sadly, loud quoting of attraction dialogue from guests ruined things like The Haunted Mansion during this event.
Buzz Lightyear needs a refurbishment badly!
VIPassholder Nights was a joke. Myself and some family members attended and there was no benefit at all to it. They only gave you two hours and it was no where near enough time to get out the regular park visitors. Most regular visitors were gone by 11, and by then you only had an hour to enjoy the “low wait times” (which were still in the 25 min and above range). Stores closed right before midnight, at the end of the event, so if you wanted to shop on the way out like you usually can at closing time, you were out of luck.
Also, I agree with you assessment Tom…no one was really checking arm bands really well (which took about 40 mins to get due to only 2 or 3 cast members per station to check you in).
I like how they asked later, in park-leaving surveys, if we felt “valued” as a Passholder. Nope…just felt like everyone else. I know they value me more when I pay the extra money for things like Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween.
The d-tech phone cases are nice, but the quality is severely lacking. The border separates from the back all the time. I actually have the one above (1971) and sadly it constantly separates.
When is the Disney shirt with the dates supposed to be available online?